Re: Is anything else then Solaris used on UltraSparc Machines.
From: Dave (duffstuff_at_hotmail-dot-com.no-spam.invalid)
Date: 11/29/05
- Next message: P.K.Stanton_at_gmail.com: "Re: How to install Sun Solaris 10 inside VMware Workstation 5.5"
- Previous message: Logan Shaw: "Re: Question about Ultra 5 station"
- In reply to: llothar: "Is anything else then Solaris used on UltraSparc Machines."
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Date: 29 Nov 2005 01:57:17 GMT
Thomas Maier-Komor wrote:
> Dave wrote:
>
>
> I think there are good reasons for using Linux in place of Solaris
on
> x86 -
>
OK.
>
> I agree, but disagree with your reasons. You don't seem to be really
> familiar with Solaris.
>
Maybe, maybe not.
> * Better hardware support.
>
> In my opinion the _supported_ hardware on Solaris runs really like a
> charm. The same thing cannot be said for Linux.
>
I've even had Solaris x86 fail to reconise a keyboard on a PC. Linux
never had that problem. Sure, it was a cheap keyboard, but ...
Solaris x86 seems better with more expensive hardware whereas Linux
tends to support that, but also the cheaper bits and pieces around.
> A lot is supported under
> Linux, but will only run in certain configuration with a subset of
> the available functionality. Have you ever tried hotplugging with
> USB, Firewire and so on?
>
USB is not bad. Not good, but considering the price of the hardware,
you
can't expect a lot.
A lot of Linux stuff works well. A lot of manufacturers produce
drivers
for Linux and simply don't bother for Solaris x86 - even if they
produce
it for Solaris (SPARC).
> On Solaris it just works. On Linux you better
> offer a decent fish to the holy pengiun and mumble a prayer. But
then
> it still won't work for sure...
>
The support for Linux hardware is *far* more complete.
The particular box I am using now (Ultra 80) has one bit of commercial
hardware in it that is not Sun. That is a National Instruments GPIB
board for controlling instruments.
National Instruments have a number of GPIB boards that support a huge
range of systems which include Sun SPARC (but not x86), Mac OSX, Dec,
IBM, HP, SGI. Linux etc. There is even an sbus board, which I can
confirm works well in a SPARC 20 with Solaris 9 and the sbus drivers.
But still there are no drivers for Solaris x86.
http://www.ni.com/support/gpib/versions.htm
That is one example. It just happens to be something I have here, but
it
is not untypical of the situation with other PCI cards.
There is an ethernet option, which would work with Solaris x86 of
course.
> * Wider range of packaged software.
>
> Have you ever looked under /usr/sfw and /opt/sfw? Or have you taken
a
> look at blastwave and sunfreeware? Definetly not, otherwise you
would
> not say this.
>
Your definate about me not looking at blastware or Sunfreeware, I am
sure I have.
What are these things - might I have installed them from Sunfreeware?
sparrow /export/home/drkirkby % pkginfo | grep SMC
application SMCapch51 apache
application SMCatk atk
application SMCdb db
application SMCexpat expat
application SMCfreet freetype
application SMCgdbm gdbm
application SMCliconv libiconv
application SMCossld openssl
application SMCxft xft
application SMCxrend xrender
Sure there is a lot of pre-packaged software of Solaris, but much less
than for Linux.
Personally I prefer builing from source the vast majority of the time.
> * Many test their open-source software on Linux and ignore Solaris
so
> building on Solaris can be more troublesome.
>
> That is indeed a sad thing.
>
Sad mabe, but still true. Death is sad, but you can't ignore it.
> But one has to say that any software that
> should be able to run on anything _else_ than Linux, will easily run
> under Solaris, as Linux has always been closely related and inspired
> by Solaris.
>
Yes, but it is often more hassle on Solaris (even SPARC). It is just
not
tested as much by the open-source community, so the small details are
not noticed.
I've even seen one arrogant person saying as long as his software
worked
on Redhat 8 or later, that was good enough and that people should
upgrade!!
> * More commercial software.
>
> In my experience if you are looking for a commercially supported
UNIX,
> Solaris is the way to go. If you want to have support for Linux you
> must run a certain release in a certain revision. And (I have had
the
> following problem a number of times) if you want to run two
different
> commercially supported software packages you can bet you need
different
> Linux releases or distributers and you can be sure that either of
both
> won't run without a hazzle on the distrib required by the other...
>
Yes, I accept Linux can be a pain with the different distros and
kernel
versions. I don't run Linux seriously here, although I used to on my
box
where I used to work. That was Debian, which I knew would not be the
most widely supported for commerical stuff. Redhad is, but I would
refuse to install Redhat, as I see them as the next Microsoft. Hence I
chose Debian to install.
When I tried installing Mathematica, it would not work on Debian
Linux.
It is only supposed to support Redhat and Suse. I did not persist any
more - installing on Windoze was another easy option, as I had a
windoze
box on my desk too.
> I don't have much in the way of commercial software on my Sun SPARC,
> but those that I do
>
> * Labview (Solaris SPARC, but not x86)
> * Matlab (Solaris SPARC but not x86)
> * Mathematica (Solaris SPARC *and* Solaris x86)
>
> That is indeed a little bit sad, too. But things are currently
changing.
>
Yes, it is sad, but true.
I don't think there is any reason the above 3 bits of software could
not
be ported to Solaris x86. Matlab is a number crunching program, so
should recompile I expect for Solaris x86, given they produce Solaris
SPARC versions.
Labview (produced by National Instruments) is generally used with
hardware and so needs hardware drivers. One of the most common bits of
hardware is the GPIB board, but as I said above, National Instruments
don't support that. Until they support that, I doubt they will build a
Solaris x86 binary for Labview.
I would add my choice of Mathematica, Matlab, Labview and the National
Instruments GPIB board are only things I have in this machine. I did
not
hand-select them in any way, other than the choice of commercial
products that obviously run in a Sun SPARC.
> And SPARC workstations offer a lot of functionality most PCs will
never
> have.
>
Such as ??? I can't see what SPARC *workstations* offer than PCs will
never have. I would have said reliability, as PCs can be pretty
unreliable. But the better quality PCs (Compaq, better Dells) are
pretty
good.
Personally I think Sun have lost there way with SPARC in the
workstation
market. Servers is a different matter altogether.
I think when this U80 is finally too old, I might have to consider not
buying another SPARC based workstation, due to the cost/performance
ratio.
> Like it or not (and I don't like it), getting rid of Winoze
completely
> is next to impossible. Sooner or later you will need to use Windoze.
>
> I bet Sun run Windoze internally for some applications.
>
>
> Have you ever heard of SunPCI? I bet you didn't.
>
I'll take your bet!! You name any amount you want.
sparrow /export/home/drkirkby % pkginfo | grep -i SunPCI
system SUNWspci2 SunPCi II
But the performance is quite poor - even for basic work procesing.
Mine
is 733 MHz with 1 GB of RAM. Although it is still physically inside my
Sun, it is a long time since I used it. I prefer to switch on a real
PC.
My PC (2 x 450 MHz PII, 768 MB RAM) is quite old, so I am not
comparing
the SunPCi card I have with the latest 3+ GHz machine with dual cores.
Even my single 350 MHz PII PC was easily much faster than the 766 MHz
SunPCi card.
If you want to donate me a PCi III card, I'll let you know what I
think
of that!!!
Also I found a game that wanted to check a CD drive to verify it not
copied refused to work on the SunPCi card.
> Any OS is an island in
> some way. You can do certain things very good, others fine and some
> simply won't work.
>
True, but Linux is a bigger island than Solaris x86.
> IMO your best bet is to use everything you can get a grip on
>
Well if you are reasonably intelligent and take the time, you can
probably get a grip on most things. But that is not a reason for using
them all.
> and monitor
> the changes and the improvements that are going on. If you are
> developing software you should cross-check it on another operating
> system _and_ architecture with different endian anyway...
>
I do that myself. Take a look at
which I wrote. I have personally tested it on Solaris (both x86 and
SPARC), HP-UX, AIX, IRIX, UNICOS, Tru64, NetBSD and a few Linux
distros.
Others have tested it on UNIXware, plus some other Linux distros.
There
are binaries for NetBSD on a wide range of hardware including the Sony
Playstation 2 !! Windows binaries exist too, although these are not
produced by me.
-- Dave K http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/ Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam. It is always of the form: month-year@domain. Hitting reply will work for a couple of months only. Later set it manually. The month is always written in 3 letters (e.g. Jan, not January etc)
- Next message: P.K.Stanton_at_gmail.com: "Re: How to install Sun Solaris 10 inside VMware Workstation 5.5"
- Previous message: Logan Shaw: "Re: Question about Ultra 5 station"
- In reply to: llothar: "Is anything else then Solaris used on UltraSparc Machines."
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Relevant Pages
|
